


A Sentinel Drabble Collection

by Mab (Mab_Browne)



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, Episode Related, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mild Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21685663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mab_Browne/pseuds/Mab
Summary: Being a collection of drabbles for The Sentinel. I've tried to place these with the most cute/least upsetting ones first.  Mainly featuring Jim and Blair, but there's one each for Simon and Alex as well.
Relationships: Jim Ellison & Blair Sandburg, Jim Ellison/Blair Sandburg
Kudos: 21





	1. Cute

It was not, Blair told himself, cute.

One large man recumbent on Joel's sofa, a small tabby cat curled on his chest, was totally not cute. Especially when the large, recumbent man was a Jim Ellison shoved out of his home because it was currently a crime scene. Jim with a cat on his chest wasn't cute; it was amazing, joyful, absolutely fantastic.

Blair sat on the floor beside Jim, listening to the cat purr.

"That's two of you I can get interesting noises out of," Jim said sleepily.

"Yeah, whatever." Smart-ass Jim: another thing that absolutely was _not_ cute.


	2. Pin

Jim fixed him with a glare.

"You know, Chief, this particular experiment is getting old."

"Come on. Important scientific measurements here."

"The only thing we're measuring is my patience." Jim heaved a long-suffering sigh. "Oh, all right. Do it."

"I've got to adjust the music first." Blair twiddled with the volume control on the stereo, making a careful note of the settings in his notebook.

"Just get on with it."

"Okay. Ready?" A resigned shake of Jim's head was his only reply, to Blair's broad grin as much as his words, before Blair let the pin between his fingers ... drop.


	3. Anniversary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written to mark the five years I had then been writing TS fic

"Chief, I'll feel stupid."

"That doesn't matter. Come on, just humour me on this one."

"Do I have to?" It came out whiny.

"Yes. Yes, you do." Jim had his instructions. "That's it, man, sweep me off my feet."

And simply as that, Blair was pinned against the wall and breathless, with Jim's hands clenched in his shirt.

"There, see. Easy as pie."

"We had a different dialogue the first time."

"That was then, this is now." Blair's voice turned wicked and assured. "Kiss me. Kiss your neo-hippie witch-doctor punk."

So Jim did. It was their fifth anniversary after all.


	4. Plans

I comb my hair _again_ – no snarls allowed in the (hopefully) touchable hair. I wrestle my zip upwards. Maybe my black cords are getting shabby but they're tight and they're soft to touch. White, loose shirt, which Denise said made me look like a Byronic poet (who talks too much, even to himself in his head. No thinking about former lovers. No jinxing.)

Jim's back, so I go out, say 'hi'.

"Plans, Chief?"

"In these ratty cords?" I swallow. "Nah, tonight I figured on staying in."

Do Jim's nostrils flare the tiniest bit? "Okay."

I think I've been made...

Great.


	5. Bathetic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written as comment fic in a light-hearted meta discussion in Arrow's LJ waaaay back in the day. We were talking about the various tropes, good and bad, that appeared in TS fic.

It was hard to love from afar, and know that your feelings would never be requited. But Jim was used to never getting what he wanted out of life. Blair's azure eyes lit with physical desire? Just one more item to add to the list of things that were never going to happen. But he had this at least, to offer the cherishing care that he would love to extend into _every_ area of their life. He carefully squeezed out the cloth – no possibility of ticklish dribbles to irritate that beautiful skin.

"There you go, Chief. No more icecream smear."


	6. The Watchers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this for Bee, aka slipperieslope, who has sadly gone from us.

I don’t presume to know how Sandburg thinks (let alone what Sandburg’s thinking) but anyone can see how he feels. The kid glows. Sandburg’s watching Ellison like he’s Moses with a brush-cut, come from the mountain with stone tablets that read, ‘whatever the hell you do, it’s all great’. Ellison watches right back, although sometimes he looks at me, apology and defiance mixed together. I was a good detective before I planted my ass in this chair; I don’t need the writing on the wall. Those two and their secrets… I need a strong cup of coffee. And tap-dance practice.


	7. Cord

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This drabble contains light bondage

The pattern reminds Blair irresistibly of henna, even though the cord is white. The shape that winds across his wrist and hands is, of necessity, coarse striation rather than delicate tendrils. Jim’s crossed everything with delicate precision, and because he liked the look, the cords are basket-woven across Blair’s fingers before coming down to a knot that leans against Blair's heart as he presses his hands to his chest. Jim’s hand tilts his chin. “Open your mouth for me.” And Jim’s face is so lit with love and lustful delight that there’s nothing else to do but, for once, obey.


	8. Velour

“It’s one of those things. I get a little lost in it, you know, sensually speaking.”

“Uh huh.”

“Look at it from my angle. All that smooth nap, really soft and silky, and if you hold your hands just right it’s like hundreds of little massaging fingers, and you can go to the left or the right, or up and down, and it’s – it’s great, Chief…”

Blair regretfully accepted he was losing the tussle for his brown velour top. “Oh for – but when,” he considered Jim’s rapt expression, “if - I get this back, it had better be thoroughly laundered.”


	9. Beautiful Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References spanking, but no actual spanking

Jim had beautiful hands and a powerful body, and thinking about that combination shivered pleasurable thrills up Blair's spine. Thinking about Jim's hand landing with forceful heat across Blair's ass... He wouldn't be able to see the marks, not then; but later maybe, inclining his body to see as best he could in the mirror. But he'd feel it. God, would he feel it.

"What are you thinking about, Chief?" Besides slicing dinner's vegetables.

"Tell you later. When we can concentrate on the idea the way it deserves."

Jim smirked. "I'll look forward to it."

He wasn't the only one.


	10. Tandem

If the fall didn’t kill Sandburg Jim swore that he would. What kind of idiot jumped out of a plane on thirty minute’s notice, mouthing big fat lies about how experienced a parachutist he was? He was screaming, “I’ve only jumped tandem.” Now he tells me, Jim thought as he bellowed instructions. “Don’t lose me, Jim,” Sandburg yelled as he swooped crazily towards the ground. Jim would do his best, but the kid didn’t make it easy, whether they were talking Peru or expeditions to Borneo. It was a fine time to realise that losing Blair was unacceptable either way.


	11. Underground

It’d be easy to let go of Freeman. Jim could claim that he couldn’t hold on, that the stink and noise of sewers and storm drains had distracted him, and Freeman and all his crazy spite would be washed away in the underground torrent below. Blair wouldn’t know any better. How could he, braced and straining to help Jim support Freeman’s weight in dark tunnels under Cascade’s streets? But Jim hauled Freeman up and cuffed him while Blair grinned and said, “Guess you did it, then.” And Jim steadied himself in Blair’s presence and said, “Yeah, I guess we did.”


	12. Take Back the Songfic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Songfic Challenge at Sentinel Thursday, back in the day. Titles and quotes are from a favourite band, Strawpeople.

Dreamchild

'this the feeling I taste in my dreams'

Blue is a celestial colour that means good fortune – 'blue for boys', 'my blue-eyed boy', 'blue sky thinking'; it symbolises thought and serenity. Jim doesn't think, he just feels and his feelings aren't serene.

In his dream, he was pleased with the shot; his target hit, his prey brought down, until he saw Blair, naked as a new-born on the blue lit jungle floor. Blair was naked, and now Jim feels the same vulnerability, even though his clothes bunch and scrape against his skin. There's a new idea born in an uncertain place in Jim's mind, and it tastes bittersweet.

Scared of flying

'eight miles isn't high enough for you'

My hands are shaking as I do up the straps. Jim is looking at me with an expression I've seen before, on him and other people. It says, 'I'm not completely convinced that you're up to this.' I've seen it on my mother's face, on teachers' faces, and yeah, I've seen it on Jim's face. What? Only big and buff ex-army rangers get to do the stupid stuff? I don't think so. Besides, I don't think that being prepared to jump out of a plane is half as stupid as the reason why I'm jumping. Following right behind him.

Beautiful Skin

'in a falling dream would you wake me up?'

Blair is in that tiny box, dying in terminal velocity and flame. They're all screaming, and it's all I can hear, until a cool voice drowns the flame and the noise. "Hey, hey, buddy. Wake up, it's just a dream." My hand flails and bounces once on the mattress before it's caught up by a warm, beautifully alive hand. Gradually, in peaceful dark, my heartbeat calms.

"You could see the PD counsellor."

"I'll be fine."

"Sure, diehard, go it alone." He's gently exasperated. But he still has my hand so I guess that I'm not going it alone after all.


	13. Black Magic Woman

The radio croons out 'Black magic woman'. Carl, sprawled in a chair, lifts his glass in salute and raises his brows in suggestion.

Alex slinks her way to him – Carl enjoys certain sexual cliches – and sits in his lap. "Which black magic do you like best?" she murmurs. "What I do on a job? Or this?" She kisses him, teasingly, and doesn't wince despite the scent of booze searing her nostrils.

'Don't turn your back on me, baby,' the song goes. She wouldn't dream of it. Not with anybody, and especially not with Carl. He'll find that out soon enough.


	14. Enquiry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love my woobie Blair as much as the next person, but one day it all got too much and I wanted something else, so I wrote one hundred words of it.

The problem is that when I got the chance I discovered that I enjoyed smiting the unrighteous. It’s easy to rationalise – to tell yourself that anything you do is purely in your own defence or in the defence of other people, but there’s a weird pleasure in _action_. Everybody hopes that their actions have some effect on the wider world, and watching a human being go down is a pretty definitive effect.

“Detective Sandburg. The enquiry committee is ready to see you now.”

I didn’t have any choice. But I know Jim worries that maybe I enjoy it too much.


	15. Aeon's Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a moment in Murder 101

Blair's flown before, been at the mercy of wind whipping through an open door to frigidly pluck at skin and hair, seen the ground an aeon's fall below, and he's never panicked like this, never despairingly grabbed for the nearest anchor; not a seat back or a strap, but the collar of Jim's jacket. He's humiliating them both but it doesn't matter; it doesn't matter that Jim's voice is sharp with anger and embarrassment. Blair's diving deep in his own fear, no going back to a time before. Who would have thought that so much air could feel like water?


	16. Snarling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I definitely wrote this with the implication that Blair is dead, but that didn't stop the commenters in my LJ at the time working out scenarios where it wasn't necessarily so. The author is dead also? ;-)

"Did it hurt?" is the most common question, and Jim always shrugs and says, "It wasn't so bad." It wasn't. That's what dialling down is for; Blair taught him that. Blair taught Jim a lot of things, but not how to keep going on his own. That, Jim had to figure out for himself. That's why the tattoo on his back, the wolf between his shoulder blades, snarling at the world the way that Jim tends to snarl at the world these days.

Maybe it's stupid; but it makes him feel better, knowing that Blair is still watching his back.


End file.
